Closing Time

43.

The crying continued till late at night. It wouldn't stop no matter, so I just laid on the couch and waited. After a while, I stopped paying attention to it, lost in my thoughts with my eyes closed. When I opened my eyes next, it was in response to feel of warmth on my face. The sun was up. I'd lost track of time. Maybe even gotten some form of sleep.

They were out there again. Sara waved at me, I felt my eye twitch as I turned away and ignored her. I see my advice hadn't been taken. There was a different person with her. A woman.

Gray was cycled back into the shift a week of work later. They'd even followed me for groceries on my day off. All the people I'd seen were the one from the cafe. There were no new faces here. And yet, the two girls were the only constants through this. I'm not buying them anything anymore.

Who were they? Harry had been very clear about them being able to get in my mind. Change memories, add, remove. One of them could see my aura. They were certainly some kind of psychics, as weird as that sounds. Auras, mind manipulation... it wasn't too much of stretch to imagine they could see past the cloak that came down on my workplace after twelve.

And the creator of the cloak itself, was missing. I hadn't seen Lou the entire week. I was coming into the second week of not seeing him around. And as usual, no Lou meant no Mike.

Though I was relieved about their absence. I don't know how I would look them in the eye after what I'd done. I swayed between feeling guilty and bouts of nothingness. The showers of tears from my eyes hadn't happened again yet. I was hoping it wouldn't again. It made my nights difficult and much more harder to deal with. I hadn't enjoyed the feeling of crushing loneliness.

I glanced up at the clock, almost 3 AM on a Tuesday morning. My second day off after meeting with the Hunters had started. Two weeks after I'd made a deal with them. Two weeks of no news from their end.

Closing my eyes, I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the counter and lowering my head. The stress is killing me. Where's Lou? Where's Mike? What do I do with the weapons? What do I do with my weapons? What do I do with the Hunters? What... What do I do?

The bell dinged. I didn't look up as I spoke. "We're done for the day."

"I've come to collect my night, Ryleigh."

A sigh escaped me before I looked up at that familiar voice. "Axel."

"Ryleigh." He grinned at me, strolling over to the counter. He leaned forward, resting on his elbows and imitating my posture. "Been a while, babe." He smirked, drawing my eyes to his lips. "Miss me?"

I sighed softly, leaning in till I was an inch from his lips. "You wish, Axel."

"I do, in fact." I moved back right as he leaned in again, a frown formed on his face. "Someone else keeping you company these days?"

"Nah." I turned away from him, wiping my hands on my apron before untying it. "I have no company these days. Mike and Lou are missing, my human friends... I can't hang out with them and I have no other friends." Something twisted in my chest. Axel didn't see the pain cross through me with my back turned.

"I'm your friend, Ryleigh."

"Yeah, right." I scoffed, tossing the apron before reaching for my bag. "Some kind of friend."

"You ever had a guy friend who didn't want to sleep with you?" I paused as I was putting on my bag, twisting to glare at him. He nodded with a snug smile. "Exactly."

"I didn't agree to that." I gritted out, turning away from him to walk around the counter.

"I figured you would just out of pure pride." He sounded amused. "I mean, you're pretty hot." I stopped again to glare at him. He just shrugged and winked at me. "You owe me a night, babe."